Sneak Peek - Note this message will probably receive a few additions before the Game Update goes live.

*** Highlights ***

*** Seeds of Destruction ***

Welcome to EverQuest Seeds of Destruction, the 15th expansion for EverQuest!

A new rift has opened in the Plane of Time. This rift leads to a bleak prophecy of the end of existence. The world of Norrath lies in ruins. The planet has shattered into millions of shards, spinning in a silent void around the rapidly blackening star of Ro.

In the wreckage on a small shard of the world, a lone figure sits quietly tending a small seedling growing between the rocks. The lone figure is none other than the fallen god Zebuxoruk.

Zebuxoruk is certainly insane, but has a unique insight into the current state of the world and possibly might hold the knowledge to guide adventurers in the quest to prevent the destruction of Norrath. Only he can direct adventurers towards specific moments in time where the armies of Discord were able to disrupt the timeline.

If they are able to stop the forces of Discord, the destruction in The Void will slowly be repaired. If not, all hope will be lost.

- Level Cap Increase: Players can now achieve level 85. New high level item sets, new Alternate Advancement ability lines, new spells, and new skill caps come with this increase.

- New Content: New themed realms for adventurers to explore including Oceangreen, Bloody Kithicor, Field of Bone, Invasion of Earth, Kuua, and Discord. Travel through the rift in Time solo, with a group, or in raids to complete new quests, tasks, and events to acquire new items, spells, tradeskill recipes, and abilities.

- Mercenaries: Mercenaries are NPCs for hire that will aid adventurers in their heroic endeavors. Their levels and abilities will scale appropriately and they will think and act for themselves with limited player guidance. They are designed for extra support or extra muscle in PvE encounters.

Unlike player pets, these NPCs are not directly controllable by players, though the player can give them general orders. They function like a normal party member including taking up a group slot and taking a share of the experience.

Mercenary Liaisons can be found in the Plane of Knowledge as well as all starting cities and will allow you to hire mercenaries based on their race. The Liaisons within the Plane of Knowledge will allow you to hire mercenaries of any player race. These merchants can be found using the Find ability.

Before purchasing a mercenary be sure to read the descriptions, cost value, and restrictions. There are different levels and tiers available. Some mercenaries may not available until you have completed certain content but there are some apprentice and journeyman ones available to all.

Mercenares have a one-time hire cost and an upkeep cost that is charged every 15 minutes. The hire cost is usually much higher than the upkeep cost.

There are two classes of Mercenaries available - Tank and Healer.

Healer Mercenary: Healer mercenaries prefer to heal and buff their owner and others in the group rather than engage directly in combat. These mercenaries can also resurrect players upon death.

Tank Mercenary: Tank mercenaries prefer to melee. They will taunt if it is set to the main tank role. Though it will still attack and behave as a secondary tank if it is not set as main tank.

If your group has someone with the puller role, mercenaries will only assist them when they and any NPCs chasing them are near camp. Any mercenary owned by the puller will stay back with the group.

Like pets, mercenaries will not aggro NPCs on their own.

Mercenaries can be suspended like a pet, though they will remain suspended forever or until you dismiss them. Mercenaries will be suspended automatically when entering most raid zones. They must also be suspended before you join a raid.

If your mercenary dies, it can be revived after five minutes with an additional upkeep charge.

Some mercenaries may not think your gold is worth them risking their life. Those with higher confidence in themselves will cost more money.

*** Live Highlights ***

- New Statue in Guild Hall: As a part of SOE's EverQuest and EverQuest II Living Legacy celebration that took place this summer, SOE and the Legends of Norrath team searched for two enthusiastic players who have what it takes to be immortalized in their favorite MMOs! Everyone was invited to submit their photos for this special contest. Out of all the submissions, Khyandys Aramyndan of the Altruistic Valorians guild on the Erollisi Marr server was selected as the winner for EverQuest! Her photo was transformed to a Legends of Norrath card and a statue of her character was placed within the Guild Hall in EverQuest! Congratulations Khyandys!

*** Items ***

- Altered the merchant value of the unfired and sealed Energeian Orbs.

*** AA ***

- The "Elemental Form" AA lines have had their reuse delay reduced to 30 seconds.- Added Cleric, Paladin, Druid, Beastlord and Ranger to the Quick Buff line.- Changed Spell Casting Deftness to a 10%, 25% and 50% cast time haste to match Quick Buff.- Focused Paragon of Spirit now requires players to purchase rank 3 of Paragon of Spirit before they can purchase the Focused Version. This will not impact anyone who currently has Focused Paragon.

*** NPCs ***

- Citizens of Shadowhaven now proudly advertise the services they offer. - Raid NPCs are now immune to Song of the Highsun.- All guildmasters will now train research to skill 20 if the player is the appropriate level to gain the research skill.

*** Tradeskills ***

A few new sets of items and recipes have been created for Tradeskills along with a few standard upgrades.

- Alchemy potions have been upgraded to level 85 and a few more illusion potions have been added.- Baking received a new meat, with recipes to go along with it.- Absinthe and another high-powered drink have been added in for Brewing.- Jewelcraft received a new metal for the next power level of jewelry. There is also a new type of base jewelry for gold and up.- Jewelcrafting, fletching, and pottery now play a major support role for smithing and tailoring.- All Energeian power sources can now be made with pottery, including the raid power sources.- New weapon recipes have been added for Smithing and Tailoring. These weapons are similar to cultural armor, but without the race/deity restrictions.- A few new recipes have been added for Tinkerers to create some handy devices.- Many spells have been added for Research, up to TSS Rank 2.- Tome research has been implemented, which means that melee classes will be able to research tomes. All classes now have access to the research skill.-- Int caster classes will still be able to research all spells and songs for all classes. They are not able to research melee tomes.-- Pure melee classes will be able to research all tomes for all classes.-- Priest classes will be able to research spells that are usable by any priest class.-- Hybrid classes will be able to research any spell or tome that can be used by any hybrid class.-- Bards will be able to research any spell, tome, or song that can be used by any hybrid class.

*** Miscellaneous ***

- Corpses will now automatically decay after you receive an experience-granting resurrection while in hover mode.- Corrected an issue that caused NPCs to not receive full damage when multiple ranged attackers hit them at the exact same time. - Fixed a problem with toggling between the last two targets if last target was selected by clicking the group window or player window using the mouse.- Fixed an issue where all items in any list window would display a tool tip regardless of whether there was a tool tip string defined.- Fixed a bug that caused groups to be out of sync when a group member went linkdead. - Fixed a bug with /hidecorpse looted that caused it to hide your own corpse when you looted it. - Fixed a bug that caused active and suspended pets to be lost when their owner went link dead. - Optimized the network traffic for the target buff window. This should result in significant improvements in lag.- Fixed several bugs with /makeleader.- Fixed a bug with charm that was causing charmed pets to not properly clear their hate lists.

*** UI ***

- Things that shouldn't have a con color (corpses, boats, etc.) will no longer display with a white con in the target window.- Re-arranged the General Options tab to allow for more options.

- Changed -

EQUI_OptionsWindow.xmlEQUI_GroupWindow.xmlEQUI_ConfirmationDialog.xml

*** Previously Updated through Hotfixes ***

- The Darkpaw quest givers in Oceangreen Hills are now marked as such.- Oceangreen Hills: Fixed an issue with Captain Hiran Tillin where players could do his quests out of order and potentially cause progression problems with their characters.- Apothecary Cadmael in Oceangreen Village no longer stocks Black Pearls, Black Sapphires, Diamonds or Quintessences of Knowledge.

First tier cleric merc was rezzing people I invited into the group in the lobby when I was near their corpse and would also then buff them with teme and a couple other cleric buffs when she had the mana, the cost I think was 140ish pp to hire her and about 4-5pp every 15ish min to maintain her.

Found she went out of mana quickly healing me, tended to use the promised ch, the elixir hot and I think the odd direct heal.

the bad thing is that they are actually trying to fix the class (or so they say). there's talk about a war march upgrade finally...we should have had that 4 expansions ago. the mod cap fix is finally incoming..i'm not sure how that will benefit the useless songs we've been given the past couple expansions, including the new one. so unless they plan on getting someone in there who doesn't suck at making songs, i wouldn't expect to see much of a difference with the new cap. they just waited way too damn long to get their shit together. 4 years really is unacceptable if you think about it.